Message Spam

Back in April, I received an email from Simple Human. They were having a sale. I decided to pop over and take a look at their kitchen garbage cans.

I found one that I liked, but it came in three sizes. I bought my current garbage can from this company, so I thought I'd login and take a look at the size I had. That would give me an idea what size in the can I was looking at.

Not that I necessarily was going to buy one, but if I was, I wanted something around the same size.

I logged in, but the site didn't respond as expected. Instead, it opened a window that demanded more information including my telephone number.

That's right. Simple Human would not allow me to login to my account without giving them my phone.

No chance in hell.

They already have my email address and my physical address since I ordered from them. They do not need the phone number too.

Oh, and along with the phone number, I had to agree to allow text messages. By providing the information they were demanding, I was granting permission for them to spam my iMessage app. Oh hell to the no times a million.

With this one change to their website, Simple Human has guaranteed that I will never buy from them directly again. They've also discouraged me from ever clicking through on their emails ever again. And I found the exact same garbage can for cheaper than the sale price at an online retailer. Another fail for Simple Human. (No, I didn't buy it.)

I don't know what the hell they think they're doing, but they really irked me. I can't be the only one who finds this ridiculous. What an epic fail.

Desk Chair Project: Setbacks!

I thought I would have part 2 of the desk chair reupholstery project ready to post, however, there were setbacks. Plural.

The first issue arose with threading wire through the channel I created at the edge of the new cover.

My chair does not have the fabric stapled to the underside. There are metal tabs it hooks into and threading the channel is important to keeping the cover in place.

The old cover had wire threaded through its channel. I didn't have any wire, so I thought I'd use the old wire. If I gathered up the extra material, it should work fine even with the new cover being larger to accommodate the additional cushion.

Nope, that didn't work.

The wire was difficult to thread through the channel, and once I ran out of slack, the thing wouldn't budge. I decided that I could substitute twine instead of wire, but the wire was now stuck because the end had frayed and was sticking through the fabric.

Seam ripper time--except the thread was black and the fabric is nearly black with flecks and dashes, making the thread close to invisible. I heard they make seam rippers with lights and magnifiers so I ordered one of them. As it turned out, I didn't need the magnification at all, what I needed was the LED lighting. I got the seam open, fixed the wire, and then tugged it free.

After the ordeal of threading the wire, I feared the worst with the twine, but it went in relatively easily. Time to put it on the chair!

Here is where bitter disappointment struck.

I used the old cover as a template and then I made the new cover six inches larger, thinking that would be more than enough to cover the new foam I'd added.

I was wrong.

While I managed to have enough in front, the rear and the sides toward the back didn't come close to reaching the metal tabs. Not even squishing the foam and pulling with my other hand got the fabric to the tabs.

I had a second problem. I assumed I'd be able to pull the string, gather up the fabric, and fasten it below. The string wouldn't pull enough fabric in. I was only able to gather it near where it entered/exited the channel I'd sewn.

The only thing I can think to do is cut a strip of fabric and sew it to the piece I already made. I'll also have to add multiple twine egress so that I can gather the fabric in sections.

I'm disheartened and temporarily putting this project on hold.

Destructive Fail

I wanted to finish sewing my T-shirt. Did it look great? No. I made a size that ended up being way too big, and because I messed up the collar band and had to rip it out, I had small little holes around the neckline. I'd decided to continue anyway and take it as a learning experience.

So on Saturday, I bought a can of spray starch because I'd read somewhere online that I could starch the hem, iron it, and then throw it in the wash when it was finished. That this would help keep a nice edge.

This was the beginning of the fail.

I don't own an ironing board, so ironing means using an old bathmat on a hard surface. Since I had a lot of ironing to do, I thought I'd do it sitting at the dining room table. This was a bad decision.

My first problem was the can of spray starch kept slipping out of my grasp. I don't know why because I do weights at the gym, I do dumbbells at home, it wasn't that heavy. But I continually had it slip. And then it happened. It slipped out of my hand and hit the edge of my dining room table. It left a distinct nick. A noticeable nick. ::Sobs::

The second problem made itself known when I finished ironing and lifted the bathmat I was using. Now I had a big white splotch on my tabletop. I'm guessing from the starch? Maybe it was the heat? I don't know, but I ran for my wood cleaner and went at that thing repeatedly. I think I got most of it.

Now it's time to sew. With a twin needle. Gah!

My fabric got stuck in the metal plate below the needle within seconds. I couldn't get it out and had to take the plate off. The fabric still wouldn't come out of the little hole it was jammed into. I worked on it, my dad worked on it. No go.

I started using the sewing machine's screwdriver to try and push the fabric out of the hole. My hand slipped. The screwdriver hit the top of my dining room table.

It left a nick.

At least it didn't slide. It just hit and I jerked it back in time to prevent more than a pinpoint nick, but OMG! WTF?

That was the last destructive fail of the day. My final fail, though, was the T-shirt. The hem is wavy and doesn't look right. An online search says to use some kind of dissolving hem tape to prevent this. I don't own any of that. Looks like I have yet another purchase to make before I try a second T-shirt.

This is disheartening and I feel sick every time I think about my poor table. :-(

Coffee Fail

My coffee maker has a timer on it, which is perfect for work days. I set the program button and wake up in the morning to fresh, hot coffee. But there's only one setting. I can't program a separate time for weekends.

Instead, I do one of two things. One, I wake up and wait for the coffee to finish. Impatiently. Or two, I wake up, traipse into the kitchen to press the button, and then go back to bed for a while. Neither choice is optimal because it involves me, getting out of bed. :-(

Then, one morning while I was half asleep, I thought wouldn't it be awesome to grab my phone and say, hey, Siri, start the coffee.

Hmm, what if I bought a smart plug that was compatible with Apple Homekit. So I hopped online while I was still in bed (and sleepy) and wow, there's a smart plug set on a gold box deal. It had decent reviews and a lot of them, so I ordered and went back to sleep for a while.

I'd like to say that as soon as I woke up, I realized why my plan wasn't going to work, but that's not what happened.

My smart plugs arrived, I ditzed around for like a half an hour, trying to get them connected to my iPhone, and once I did, I plugged the coffee maker into one of them. And that's when it dawned on my that my scathingly brilliant idea was an epic fail.

The button to brew coffee isn't going to stay pressed while there is no power to the coffee maker. Sure, I can turn the plug on, but the coffee maker is going to stay dark. No brewing.

Then there are the problems of continually needing to reset the clock and redo the programming for the work week. Sigh.

I've since discovered there are smart coffee makers. I won't be replacing my current coffee maker. It's reasonably new and I actually really like it a lot. But when this one goes to appliance heaven, my next one is going to be able to be controlled from my bed. I want to be able to say, Hey, Siri, start the coffee.

I Fail at Socks

In April, Marly Bird had another Knit-A-Long (KAL) and I was all excited. She's super good at teaching knitting and I'd been interested in learning how to make socks. And how hard can it be, right?

Well, for me, incredibly difficult.

The cast-on technique was easy enough and I started knitting my first row around the double pointed needles (DPN). Only when I reached the end of the row, I'd somehow ended up with a huge gap. I assumed that some stitches fell off the needles and I took everything apart and cast-on again. And yet again, everything looked right, but when I reached the end of the row, there was a gap. This one was smaller, but still a problem.

When I tried for the fourth time (Fourth time's the charm, right?) I made it around the row and it stayed the way it was supposed to. Hurrah!

Only I celebrated too early.

As I finished knitting row 2, I spotted a gap. I might have cursed. Profusely. I had no idea what I was doing wrong, but I ripped it out and cast-on again. And again. And again.

I'm not sure what I'm doing that gives me a gap when there's none in my cast-on, but apparently if I ever want to make socks, I better learn the magic loop method.

Epic Fail or More Kitchen Adventures

I'm terrible at cooking. Or maybe the more accurate way to state it would be that I am bored to tears by cooking and so I do it as little as possible. I also have a tendency to wander away from the kitchen while things are cooking. This has led to a lot of kitchen failure. When I do actually do the cooking thing, I try to make enough to have left overs, hopefully enough for a week. And this leads me to my latest adventure in the kitchen.

At my day job, there are regular fundraisers when grits are sold. Being from Minnesota originally, I hadn't had much exposure to them, but now that I'm in Georgia, I was convinced to try them--with Cajun sausage and pepper jack cheese. And I ended up liking the cheese sausage grits. I've even made them at home a few times.

Last weekend, I decided to make them again. The recipe on the quick grits says 2 cups of water for 1/2 cup of grits. I wanted to make 3 cups of grits so I'd have leftovers and I did some math. 12 cups of water for 3 cups of grits.

Everything is going well. I'd cooked the Andouille sausage and was cutting it up on the other side of the kitchen while I waited for my 12 cups of water to come to a boil. When they did, I added the grits. Hmm, I said, this looks much too watery. This is bad. I must have done my math wrong. It must be 6 cups of water for 3 cups of grits. (Trust me, while I can normally handle simple multiplication, that skill has deserted me more than once in the kitchen.)

I began hurriedly adding more grits. Like double what was already in there.

It didn't take long before I realized that no, my math hadn't been wrong. I should have waited to see how the grits expanded before adding more. Now my biggest pot is filled almost to the rim with grits and I somehow need to add more water or I'll have a solid lump.

There was only one thing I could do. I pulled out another pan and started scooping grits into it. Do I need to mention that grits dripped everywhere? I started out with a large spoon and switched to a ladle. My spoon rest became filled with grits. Some dripped down the front of my stove, the sides of the pots, into the burner, and onto the floor. The mess was truly epic.

Ultimately, the grits turned out okay, but I now have four big storage containers filled to the top with leftovers. I definitely didn't want this much left. :-( You don't even want to know how long it took me to clean my kitchen.

I seriously need adult supervision whenever I cook.

Auto Flush

I've blogged before about these crazy auto flush toilets we have at work. Why the reprise? Because it got even crazier.

They're renovating our restrooms at work. They need it, believe me. The building I work in went up in the 1960s, and aside from some minor updating (like the self-flushing toilets), it doesn't look as if any work has been done on them.

The restroom closest to my desk is currently closed for the renovations, so I have to use another. This one is already all prettified. It also has brand new auto flush toilets and these things are wild. As a water-saving measure, they are extremely worthless. Let me explain. :-)

Walk into the stall, try to put toilet seat cover on seat. Toilet flushes.

Turn around so I can sit. Toilet flushes.

Stand up again. Toilet flushes. (This is the only time it should flush.)

Reach for door lock. Toilet flushes.

Walk out of stall, door swings. Toilet flushes.

Yes, five flushes when there should have only been one. I'm calling this a massive water-saving Fail.

Then there are the motion sensor sink faucets... But I won't go into that. ;-)

Non-Fiction Fail

I've been listening to audio books a lot lately, especially non-fiction. I look at it as a way to expand my horizon, learn new things, and keep myself entertained at work. Recently, I listened to a book that was highly rated, both at Audible and the other online bookstores. The topic sounded interesting, the narrator did a great job in the sample I listened to, so I bought the book.

I made it about halfway through, but barely. I sent out a lot of tweets while I listened to the first half, complaining about this book.

My problem with it was pretty big. Non-fiction should, you know, have facts to support the authors' theory. They didn't. Their idea of "support" was shooting holes in other academics' theories. Maybe they thought by disproving pieces of these other ideas, it proved their own position, but that's not correct. The logic class I had taught that just because A does not equal B, does not automatically mean it equals C. If that makes sense.

Let's say someone claims Susie went to the store with John. Now I say, no, Susie went to the store with Mary. John was playing baseball with Joe at that time. Just because John was playing baseball with Joe and couldn't have gone to the store with Susie does not prove that Susie went to the store with Mary!

Yet this was the type of argument these authors made repeatedly to support their own controversial theory. Sorry, but no. It doesn't work that way.

Their other proof was completely anecdotal, also unacceptable for science. It didn't help that their anecdotes were either removed from the time period they were looking at by thousands of years, but frequently it revolved around species that are related to humans, like the benobo and chimpanzee, but they're not human! It's like comparing apples and oranges! Just because one species of animal does it, doesn't prove that a related species exhibits that same behavior. Yet these authors were willing to discount every similarity to chimps because it didn't fit their theory and yet accept everything about the bonobo because those facts did.

Excuse me?

I was totally open to this theory going in. I thought it would be fascinating to hear the supporting evidence for their idea, but through half the book, absolutely nothing that would stand up to academic rigor was used.

What floored me most, though, were the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds!) of five-star reviews with very few low ratings. Did no one who read or listened to this book notice there was a huge dearth of substantive information presented? Did the authors' editor not notice the complete lack of facts?

I found it very discouraging that a non-fiction book was so lax.

Fail Day

Friday was my fail day. Nothing earthshaking happened, but just little things. Like my hair dryer not working. :-)

I'd dropped it Thursday night when I was cleaning, but I didn't think anything of it. Then Friday morning, I went to dry my hair and all I got was cold air. I flipped it to the hottest setting, but it never heated up. That's when I remembered that it had fallen off the counter the night before. I never did get my hair completely dry because the cold air didn't do a lot. It's January. It's Minnesota. Cold air to dry hair = Fail. Damp hair in -4 degree weather = Massive Fail.

Of course, this required the great search for a new hair dryer. I ended up ordering a professional model that was about 2.5 times the cost of the regular blow dryers. It's supposed to be more durable and it's supposed to dry hair faster and more quietly than the cheap dryers. I will report back on how I like it after I've had a chance to use it for a while.

My second fail of the day happened at the (necessary) Evil Day Job. I crossed the hall from my cube, returned, and as I glanced down, spotted a black sock lying on the floor. Yes, it was mine. :-( I hate it when socks disappear and I can't find them. It inevitably leads to something like this. Sock falling out of pants leg onto floor = Fail.

I was lucky, though, no one was around to see this happen. The last time this happened--no, once wasn't enough--one of my tech writers asked if the sock on the floor was mine. I said no--hey, I was wearing both of my socks, it couldn't be mine, right?--then looked down and sure enough, it was mine. Ever since that embarrassing incident, when a sock goes missing, I try to find it. Obviously, this one remained well hidden. :-)

A fail day on a Friday = Massive Fail.